


I love him but I know I'm gonna leave him

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [31]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You made it look like I had a choice,” she says, quieter now as she approaches him. He stands stock still, as though trying to escape the notice of a predator. “You offered me the universe on a silver platter because you knew it didn’t matter. You knew I’d choose you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I love him but I know I'm gonna leave him

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the tumblr prompt "angry kiss".

River doesn’t answer when he knocks on the door of her flat to take her out. Her lights are on, though, and he as he steps back he can see her silhouette through the curtains of her front window, so he knows she’s there. Assuming she hadn’t heard, he fumbles with the sonic for a moment before letting himself in.

“River?” he calls, but she doesn’t answer. He has to step over first one high heel in the door way, and then the other a few feet away, as though she’d taken them off without stopping.

Tugging at his bowtie and tucking the sonic away, he steps cautiously further into the flat, and finds her sitting at her dining room table, sprawled gracelessly over a chair with a glass of red wine resting precariously in a hand on her lap. She sighs when she sees him, her face frustratingly blank, and the wine sloshes in her glasses.

“River,” he repeats. “Are you alright?”

She raises a brow at him but doesn’t respond, instead lifting the wine to her lips to take a long sip. He notices then that she’s dressed up, in a short black dress with thin, elegant straps, her hair piled onto her head in a careful arrangement of curls. He waits another moment to see what she’ll say, but she doesn’t seem in a hurry to speak at all. Instead she just takes another gulp of wine, tracing her eyes over him without a hint of a smile. Everything about her is calm and cool and detached, but he can see her knuckles going white around her glass.

“I…” he trails off, fidgeting. “I came to take you out. On a — you know. On a  _date_. I can… come back?”

River’s lips twitch at the edges — he can’t tell if she’s resisting a smile or the urge to snap at him — and she finishes off her glass of wine. Without a word she sets her glass on the table and leans over it to grab the bottle and pours herself a healthy measure. It feels like years before she turns back to him, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and setting her jaw, as though steeling herself.

“I was already on a date tonight,” she says, finally.

“Oh, did I double back? Where did we —”

“ _Not_  with you,” she snaps, and he realizes for the first time that it’s  _anger_  she’s trying to tamp down on. “I’m allowed to do that. Date. We’re not together. You’re just some mad man who keeps showing up.”

He swallows. “Yes. Fine. I know.”

“It was with a former professor. It’s all a bit untoward, I know, but I’m old for a student — older than anybody even realizes — and I haven’t had them in class for nearly a year. They’re a charming individual. Snappy dresser, smart mouth. The kind that begs to be slapped, but in a good way. You know the sort.”

The Doctor tugs at his collar, unsure how to respond.

“They took me on a lovely date,” River says. “Posh, expensive restaurant. Excellent wine. They showered me with compliments and scintillating conversation about history and politics — frankly, it was an absolute dream.”

He cringes at her wording, but she barely even pauses.

“It was the sort of date to put a girl on cloud nine, you know?” she says. “Something out of a movie. And I clicked with them  _so_  well — they even walked me to the door of my flat, and made no overtures about coming in. Just wanted to see me off. And then they leaned in to kiss me. Do you know what I did?”

He shakes his head and shrugs, dropping his eyes to the ground, but River isn’t in a mood for mercy. When she speaks, her voice is sharp and commanding and frayed around the edges, like she’s just barely keeping it together.

“Answer me.”

“No, River,” he says, rolling his eyes before meeting hers. He can’t help but sneer a bit — she’s baiting him on purpose, and as raw as he can see she is at the moment, it makes him bristle. “I don’t know what you did.”

“I turned my cheek,” she says. “I told them I had a lovely evening, that we should do it again, that I valued their friendship.” She lets out a bark of laughter without a shred of warmth in it. “It was a lie.”

“You don’t value their friendship?”

She seems to ignore him. “I would’ve kissed them, years ago. I would’ve invited them into my flat and shagged them without a thought and agreed to a second date. And a third, and a forth, and so on. They would’ve been  _perfect_.”

“So why didn’t you?” the Doctor asks, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Because of  _you_ , you great  _moron_ ,” she says. She downs her second glass of wine in one go, not removing her eyes from his the whole while. When she slams the glass down on the table her hand shakes. “ _You_  gave me this great big bloody choice in Berlin, and  _you_  left me with the sisters to heal and  _you_  gave me that empty book and made it all look like you’d finally given me a life! You made me think I finally had a choice.” She laughs again, and he flinches. “And now, here I am, so many years later — about to become a  _Doctor_. I could do anything. I could have anything. Any _one_. But  _somehow_  I don’t want any of it. I don’t want to study or go on lunar digs or date or make a life here — I study and I start mentally correcting the texts, just like you do. Someone offers me some practical experience, and all I can think is that I could see the  _real_  thing, in the TARDIS. I go on a date and I spend the entire time feeling guilty. Someone tries to kiss me — someone brilliant and kind and compassionate and  _perfect_  — and all I can think about is your stupid bloody face with that stupid bloody kicked puppy expression.”

“I don’t make a —”

“ _You’re doing it right now_ ,” she says. 

He just gapes at her, watching her try and get her breathing under control even though he can see her shoulders shaking, can see her eyes rimming red, can see how she grips the arm of the chair for support as she stands and walks toward him.

“You made it look like I had a choice,” she says, quieter now as she approaches him. He stands stock still, as though trying to escape the notice of a predator. “You offered me the universe on a silver platter because you knew it didn’t matter. You knew I’d choose you.”

“Time can be —”

He knows she’s going to do it before she even raises her hand, but he lets her slap him anyway. It stings, but not as much as the way her expression is closed to him — she’ll yell and berate him and offer him a select few of her innermost thoughts, but she doesn’t trust him with everything yet. That hurts almost more than her accusations, and only slightly less than her pain — that she feels the need to hide herself from him, to protect herself from him. Maybe he ended up being the monster from her childhood nightmares, after all.

Before he can say anything, she grabs his collar roughly and pulls him down to kiss her, scraping her teeth against his lips and gnashing them against his. He tries to slow her down, reaching out to tangle a hand in her hair, but she grabs his wrist and stops him; he softens his mouth against her, but she just bites his lip harder, closing her mouth to his tongue until she’s just holding her lips against his and breathing him in, one shuddering breath at a time. He stills until she pulls away, but she doesn’t even look at him. She just turns her back to him and walks down the hallway toward her bedroom.

“Get the hell out of my flat, Doctor,” she says, slamming the door behind her.

He corks her bottle of wine and cleans off her wine glasses, hoping she’ll resurface, but in the end she doesn’t stir, and so he leaves. He doesn’t come to her flat again, at least not for a long time. He waits for her to find him.

It takes years.


End file.
